The Justice Department, on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency, files lawsuits against 32 power plants in 10 mid-west and southeast states for failing to install state-of-the-art pollution controls—as required by the New Source Review (NSR) section of the Clean Air Act—when companies made major modifications to their coal-fired plants. The suits say that the companies’ violations of NSR has resulted in illegal emissions of tens of millions of tons of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter into the air. [US Department of Justice, 11/3/1999] Some of these companies have been releasing these illegal emissions for 20 years or more. [New York Times Magazine, 4/4/2004] Six months after coming to office, the Bush administration will put all of these investigations on hold, causing some companies to abandon settlements or pull out of their negotiations with the Justice Department (see June 22, 2001).

The energy and utility industries lobby Congress to attach a rider to a pending appropriations bill that would deny the Environmental Protection Agency and Justice Department funding to pursue litigation (see November 3, 1999) against a group of mid-western and southern utility companies for violations of the New Source Review (NSR) section of the Clean Air Act. In letters to Congress, the groups insist that failing to pass the rider “could have severe implications for [electric] supply reliability in the near future.… [U]nits covered by the enforcement action could potentially be shut down.” Environmental groups counter that passing the rider would make enforcement of NSR impossible. Congress does not pass the rider. [Washington Post, 11/15/1999]

Governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman announces that her state has joined the federal government’s lawsuits (see November 3, 1999) against several mid-west and southeast utility companies for allegedly releasing tens of millions of illegal emissions in violation of the New Source Review section of the Clean Air Act. Governor Whitman says: “We’ve done much here in New Jersey to ensure that our residents can breathe clean air. All of our efforts are fruitless, however, if New Jerseyans must breathe the dirty air coming into our state from mid-west coal-burning power plants. This legal action will require that these power plants clean up their emissions and stop polluting our air.” [New Jersey, 12/3/1999; Reuters, 12/6/1999]

Presidential candidate George W. Bush unveils an environmental plan that would require power plants to reduce emissions of four main pollutants. If elected, Bush says he will propose legislation requiring “electric utilities to reduce emissions and significantly improve air quality.” Specifically, he promises to “work with Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, consumer and environmental groups, and industry to develop legislation that will establish mandatory reduction targets for emissions of four main pollutants: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury, and carbon dioxide.” [GeorgeWBush.Com, 9/29/2000] Bush will break that promise within two months of taking office (see March 1, 2001, March 8, 2001, and March 13, 2001).

On his last day in office as governor of Texas, George W. Bush leaves the following environmental legacy, according to a report by Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP): Number 1 state in the US for manufacturing plant emissions of toxic and ozone-causing chemicals; Number 1 state in the US in the discharge of carcinogens harmful to the brain and central nervous system of small children; Number 1 state in the US for releasing industrial airborne toxins; Number 1 state in the US for the number of hazardous waste incinerators; Number 1 state in the US in producing cancer-causing benzene and vinyl chloride; Number 1 state in the US for violating clean water discharge standards; Number 1 state in the US for releasing toxic waste into underground wells. A third of Texas’s rivers are so polluted that they are unfit for recreational use. And during Bush’s terms as governor, Houston passed Los Angeles as the city with the worst air quality in the US. The REP cannot find a single initiative from Bush during his tenure that sought to improve the state’s air or water. [Carter, 2004, pp. 128-129]

Cinergy Corp., a Cincinnati-based electric utility, agrees to settle a Justice Department lawsuit (see November 3, 1999) over its alleged violation of the New Source Review section of the Clean Air Act. As part of the agreement, Cinergy will spend $1.4 billion to install state-of-the-art pollution controls at 10 coal-fired power plants in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. It is estimated that the plant upgrades will reduce the company’s annual sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by 400,000 tons and 100,000 tons, respectively. The company also agrees to pay an $8.5 million fine and complete $21 million in environmental projects. [Cinergy Corp., 12/21/2000; Environmental Protection Agency, 12/21/2000; Associated Press, 12/21/2000]

President George Bush appoints Philip A. Cooney as the chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which helps create and promote administration policies on environmental issues. In that position, he also serves as the Bush’s “climate team leader.” Cooney, a lawyer with a bachelor’s degree in economics, was formerly a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute. He has no background in science. [New York Times, 6/8/2005]

Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey’s office orders employees of the Forest Service’s Content Analysis Team (CAT) to downplay the public’s feelings towards the Roadless Rule in a report the team is preparing for policy decision-makers. The office also instructs them not to mention how many people have sent in comments on the issue. A memo is later distributed to the team’s employees setting the limits on what they are permitted to say in the report. It instructs them to “avoid any emphasis on conflict or opposition and also avoid any appearance of measuring the ‘ote’ highlighting areas of conflict [because it] serves no good purpose in dealing with the issues or interests, and may only exacerbate the problems.” The memo even provides explicit instructions on what words the CAT team can and cannot use. Among the list of banned terms are: many, most, oppose, support, impacts and clear cuts. Words that the memo suggests using instead include: some, state, comment, effects and even-aged management. [High Country News, 4/26/2004]

The Bush administration pressures the Forest Service’s Content Analysis Team (CAT) to stop accepting form letters. CAT’s job is to review comment letters from the public and produce summary reports on public opinion for policy decision-makers. [High Country News, 4/26/2004]

The number of “cooperative research and development agreements” between the EPA and individual corporations or industry associations increases dramatically under the Bush administration. Under such agreements, companies help fund EPA research programs. But critics says these partnerships result in funds being diverted from public health and environmental research toward applied research that is shaped by the interests of corporate funders. In internal agency surveys, EPA scientists say that corporate involvement is influencing the agency’s research agenda. According to one EPA scientist, “Many of us in the labs feel like we work for contracts.” [PEER, 10/5/2005]

NOAA scientists’ communications with Congress are vetted by the NOAA’s “policy shop,” housed in the Office of Undersecretary, before being passed on to lawmakers. Many of the communications, especially those that concern sensitive topics like global warming, are edited so they do not contradict the Bush administration’s favored policy positions. According to an unnamed NOAA source interviewed by the Government Accountability Project, “Realizing that it is pointless,” NOAA’s Office of Legislative Affairs “has stopped asking certain scientists what to write in certain circumstances as it is certain to get completely rewritten anyway.” [Union of Concern Scientists and Government Accountability Project, 1/30/2007, pp. 36 ]

Incoming Vice President Dick Cheney is already working to formulate the new administration’s energy policy, and to do so he is calling on a variety of CEOs and lobbyists for the oil, gas, and energy corporations. Authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein will later observe that Cheney’s “visitor log began to look like the American Petroleum Institute [API]‘s membership list. This was no coincidence.” In early January, an oil and gas lobbyist brings a group of industry executives to the API’s Washington offices to put together a wish list for Cheney and the administration. Shortly after the inauguration, the same lobbyist, J. Steven Griles, will be named deputy secretary of the interior and assigned to work with the Cheney energy task force (see May 16, 2001). Griles will become the conduit for API members to funnel their recommendations directly to the task force. [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 7]

On his first day in office, President Bush has his chief of staff, Andrew Card, issue directives to every executive department with authority over environmental issues, and orders them to immediately put on hold dozens of regulations passed by the Clinton administration. The Clinton regulations include lowering arsenic levels in drinking water; reducing the release of raw sewage into rivers and streams; setting limits on logging, drilling, and mining on public lands; increasing energy efficiency standards; and banning snowmobiles from Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. [Carter, 2004, pp. 127]

Two of the first people to meet with the newly inaugurated President Bush are Enron CEO Kenneth Lay and Enron vice president Robert Shapiro. Lay and Shapiro are close political allies of Bush and Vice President Cheney. Lay and his Enron executives were not only the largest campaign donors for the Bush-Cheney presidential effort, but are Bush’s largest lifetime political backers, having financed Bush’s two campaigns for governor of Texas to the tune of some $775,000. Enron sank $1.2 million into the various 2000 Republican political campaigns, with the lion’s share of those donations going to the Bush-Cheney campaign. Enron provided more tangible support than just money; during the contentious December 2000 recount debacle in Florida, Enron (and Halliburton) provided corporate jets that shuttled Bush-Cheney lawyers and personnel around Florida and Washington. The early meetings with Bush are matched by meetings between Cheney, Lay, Shapiro, and at least four other Enron executives. [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 6-7]

Newly elected president George W. Bush says he opposes price caps on wholesale electricity, and suggests that for California to ease its power crisis, it should relax its environmental regulations and allow power companies such as Enron to operate unchecked. “The California crunch really is the result of not enough power-generating plants and then not enough power to power the power of generating plants,” he says. [Harper's, 1/23/2001] In 2002, former Enron energy trader Steve Barth will give a different perspective. “This was like the perfect storm,” he will say of Enron’s merciless gaming of the California energy crisis. “First, our traders are able to buy power for $250 in California and sell it to Arizona for $1,200 and then resell it to California for five times that. Then [Enron Energy Services] was able to go to these large companies and say ‘sign a 10-year contract with us and we’ll save you millions.’” [CBS News, 5/16/2002]

Coal and utility companies lobby the Bush administration’s energy task force, headed by Vice President Cheney, to include in its forthcoming energy plan a recommendation to lift the New Source Review section of the Clean Air Act. The energy companies want to be able to expand the capacity of their plants without triggering NSR requirements to upgrade pollution controls. [Wall Street Journal, 5/1/2001; Reuters, 5/2/2001]

President Bush informs a small group of reporters that he is forming an “energy task force” to draw up a new national energy policy. It will be the first major policy initiative of his presidency. The administration is driven by its concern for “the people who work for a living… who struggle every day to get ahead.” The task force will find ways to meet the rising demand for energy and to avoid the shortfalls causing major power blackouts in California and other areas (see January 23, 2001). He has chosen Vice President Cheney to chair the task force. “Can’t think of a better man to run it than the vice president,” he says. He refuses to take questions, turning aside queries with jokes about the recent Super Bowl. The short press briefing will be virtually the only time the White House tells reporters anything about Cheney’s National Energy Policy Development Group. [Savage, 2007, pp. 85-86] Deputy press secretary Scott McClellan will later write that the task force “held a series of meetings with outside interests whose identities were withheld from the public. This created an early impression of an administration prone to secrecy and reinforced the image of the Bush White House as in thrall to corporate interests.” [McClellan, 2008, pp. 96]

In a memo to the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), ExxonMobil lobbyist Randy Randol denounces esteemed climate scientist Robert Watson, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as someone “handpicked by Al Gore” who is using the media to get “coverage for his views.” Thus he asks, “Can Watson be replaced now at the request of the US?” In addition to Watson, Randol names other climate experts who he wants “removed from their positions of influence.” A year later, the Bush administration will block Watson’s reelection as IPCC chairman. [Randol, 2/6/2005 ; Mother Jones, 5/2005]

Exxon logo. [Source: Goodlogo (.com)]One of the first officials to meet with Vice President Cheney’s energy task force (the National Energy Policy Development Group—see May 16, 2001) is James Rouse, the vice president of ExxonMobil and a large financial donor to the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign. Several days later, Kenneth Lay, the CEO of Enron, meets with the group. It will not be his last meeting (see April 17, 2001 and After). The names of the various officials, executives, lobbyists, and representatives who meet with the task force will not be released until 2007 (see July 18, 2007). [Washington Post, 7/18/2007]

NMA logo. [Source: Enumerate (.com)]Jack N. Gerard of the National Mining Association (NMA) meets with Andrew Lundquist, the executive director of the Cheney energy task force (the National Energy Policy Development Group—see May 16, 2001), and other staff members. Gerard wants the Bush administration to give the Energy Department the responsibility for promoting technology that would ease global warming, and more importantly, to keep the issue away from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which could issue regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. Gerard and the NMA want voluntary, not mandatory, regulations. The task force adopts the NMA’s request in its policy. The names of the various officials, executives, lobbyists, and representatives who meet with the task force will not be released until 2007 (see July 18, 2007). [Washington Post, 7/18/2007]

Larisa E. Dobriansky is appointed deputy assistant secretary for national energy policy at the Department of Energy. Her job will be to manage the department’s Office of Climate Change Policy. Prior to the appointment, she was an employee of Akin Gump, where she lobbied for ExxonMobil on climate change issues. [Mother Jones, 5/2005]

Peabody Energy logo. [Source: BNet (.com)]Ira F. Engelhardt and Fred Palmer, the CEO and vice president of Peabody Energy, meet with Andrew Lundquist, the director of Vice President Cheney’s energy task force (the National Energy Policy Development Group—see May 16, 2001). Also at the meeting are Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Bush economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey. Peabody, the world’s largest coal company, is preparing a stock offering. The task force’s coal policy recommendations will directly impact the stock market’s response to Peabody’s IPO. The task force releases its recommendations (see May 16, 2001) less than a week before Peabody releases its stock offering on May 21. In part because the energy policy strongly emphasizes the use of coal, Peabody raises $420 million by going public—$60 million more than stock analysts predicted. Authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein will write, “The task force was, in effect, flogging a stock offering.” [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 17-18]

President George Bush, following the lead of Vice President Dick Cheney, prepares to renege on his campaign promise to cap carbon dioxide emissions (see September 29, 2000, March 8, 2001, and March 13, 2001). The promise is later described by authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein as “the environmental centerpiece of [his] presidential campaign.” Christine Todd Whitman, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, later says on CNN, “George Bush was very clear during the course of the campaign that he believed in a multipollutant strategy, and that includes CO2.” Initially, Bush stood by his pledge even as House Republicans Tom DeLay (R-TX) and Joe Barton (R-TX) attacked it as being bad for business. But on March 1, Cheney receives a personal note from energy lobbyist and veteran Republican operative Haley Barbour, headed “Regarding Cheney Energy Policy & Co.” The note reads in part: “A moment of truth is arriving in the form of a decision whether this administration’s policy will be to regulate and/or tax CO2 as a pollutant.… Demurring on the issue of whether the CO2 idea is eco-extremism, we must ask, do environmental initiatives, which would greatly exacerbate the energy problems, trump good energy policy, which the country has lacked for eight years?” Cheney moves quickly to respond to Barbour’s concerns. [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 19]

Duke Energy logo. [Source: University of Michigan]Several officials from the nation’s biggest electric utilities, including Duke Energy and Constellation Energy Group, meet with Vice President Cheney’s energy task force (the National Energy Policy Development Group—see May 16, 2001). The names of the various officials, executives, lobbyists, and representatives who meet with the task force will not be released until 2007 (see July 18, 2007). [Washington Post, 7/18/2007]

An angry and embarrassed Christine Todd Whitman, the director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), storms into a breakfast meeting with Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, waving a letter signed by four Republican senators—Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Larry Craig (R-ID), Jesse Helms (R-NC), and Pat Roberts (R-KS). The letter says that President Bush will soon withdraw the US from the Kyoto Accords (see March 27, 2001), even though Whitman has been telling the press Bush is committed to a “multipollutant” strategy of reducing CO2 and other emissions. Worse, Bush is going to renege on his promise to reduce C02 emissions (see September 29, 2000). O’Neill, who is until now unaware of the backchannel discussions about the administration’s environmental policy, is suspicious of the tone and language of the letter, which was faxed from Hagel’s office two days before. It sounds, he later writes, as if it came “right out of Dick Cheney’s mouth” (see March 1, 2001). O’Neill will later learn that Hagel and Cheney had been working for days to reverse Bush’s course on carbon dioxide caps, and in the process undermine Whitman (see March 8, 2001 and March 13, 2001). [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 19-20]

A White House team drafts a memo to John Bridgeland, President Bush’s domestic policy adviser, arguing that Bush should renege on his campaign promise to impose limits on power plant emissions of carbon dioxide. The memo cites a December 2000 Energy Department analysis which said that implementing CO2 restrictions would undermine the economy. The memo suggests that Bush acknowledge rising global temperatures, but state that “any specific policy proposals or approaches aimed at addressing global warming must await further scientific inquiry.” Not a single person on the team is a scientist. The recommendation ignores a March 7 memo written by climate experts at the Environmental Protection Agency urging the president to keep his pledge. In their memo, the EPA scientists said the Energy Department analysis was flawed. It noted that the study “was based on assumptions that do not apply” and “inflates the costs of achieving carbon dioxide reductions.” The White House team that recommends breaking the campaign pledge is made up of Cesar Conda, an adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney; Andrew Lundquist, the White House energy policy director, who later becomes an energy lobbyist; Kyle E. McSlarrow, deputy secretary of energy and former chairman of Dan Quayle’s 2000 presidential campaign; Robert C. McNally Jr., an energy and economic analyst who later becomes an investment banker; Karen Knutson, a deputy on energy policy and former Republican Senate aide; and Marcus Peacock, an analyst on science and energy issues with the Office of Management and Budget. [New York Times, 10/19/2004]

Disturbed by President Bush’s impending reversal of his pledge to cap carbon dioxide emissions (see September 29, 2000), Environmental Protection Agency head Christine Todd Whitman meets with Bush to attempt to change his mind. But Bush cuts her off: “Christine, I’ve already made my decision.” He says he has written a letter to Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE—see March 13, 2001). Notably, as Whitman is leaving the Oval Office, she sees Vice President Cheney pick up the letter to Hagel from a secretary (see March 8, 2001). That same day, Cheney meets with Hagel and then addresses the Senate Republican Conference, announcing to that body that the administration no longer supports carbon dioxide caps. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill later calls Cheney’s actions “a clean kill,” reminiscent of the bureaucratic manipulations Cheney had become so good at during the Nixon and Ford administrations. Authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein sum up Cheney’s modus operandi: “No fingerprints. No accountability. Cheney collaborated with four senators who were working against White House policy, then persuaded the president to join them.” [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 20]

In a letter to Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb), President Bush says that his administration will not support a mandatory reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. In doing so, Bush is backing away from his campaign promise to impose emissions caps for “four main pollutants: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and carbon dioxide.” In his letter, Bush says that carbon dioxide is not classified as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act (in fact, it is [US Law Title 42 Chapter 85, Sections 7403(g)] ) and that a recent Department of Energy review had found a mandatory reduction in greenhouse gas emissions “would lead to an even more dramatic shift from coal to natural gas for electric power generation and significantly higher electricity prices compared to scenarios in which only sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides were reduced.… This is important new information that warrants a reevaluation, especially at a time of rising energy prices and a serious energy shortage.” [CNN, 3/14/2001; Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/14/2001; US President, 3/19/2001 ]

Joseph Kelliher, a top political appointee on Vice President Cheney’s energy task force (see January 29, 2001) e-mails natural gas executive Dana Contratto with the following question: “If you were King or Il Duce, what would you include in a national [energy] policy, especially with respect to natural gas issues?” The e-mail is never intended to become public knowledge. Kelliher will later become President Bush’s appointee to head the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). [Savage, 2007, pp. 86]

API logo. [Source: American Petroleum Institute]James Ford, an official with the American Petroleum Institute (API), sends Energy Department official Joseph T. Kelliher copies of the API’s position papers. In that packet is what the Cheney energy task force (the National Energy Policy Development Group—see May 16, 2001) will describe as a “suggested executive order to ensure that energy implications are considered and acted on in rulemakings and executive actions.” In May 2001, President Bush will issue that selfsame executive order (see May 11, 2001). [Washington Post, 7/18/2007]

British Petroleum logo. [Source: British Petroleum]Officials from British Petroleum, including regional president Bob Malone, meet with Vice President Cheney’s energy task force (the National Energy Policy Development Group—see May 16, 2001). The BP representatives are part of a group of officials from some 20 different oil and drilling companies and organizations to meet with Cheney’s task force in March and April. The other organizations include the National Mining Association, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, and the American Petroleum Institute. The names of the various officials, executives, lobbyists, and representatives who meet with the task force will not be released until 2007 (see July 18, 2007). In November 2005, BP America CEO Ross Pillari will testify in a Senate hearing that he does not know about any such meetings (see November 16, 2005). [Washington Post, 11/16/2005; Washington Post, 7/18/2007]

Senators John Breaux (R-LA) and James Inhofe (R-OK) send a letter to Vice President Dick Cheney asking him, in his capacity as chairman of the National Energy Policy Development Group, to order the suspension of the Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement of the New Source Review (NSR) section of the Clean Air Act. The senators say utility companies are confused about NSR rules and that the EPA should clarify how it interprets new source reviews. They also asks Cheney to suspend current litigation efforts against several utility companies that were initiated under the Clinton administration (see November 3, 1999). The senators claim that the suits are undermining energy production. [Inhofe, 3/23/2001; Reuters, 3/30/2001]

Some commentators react swiftly and angrily to the US’s abrupt withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocols (see March 27, 2001). “China can’t accept any attempt to violate the principles of the convention and eliminate the protocol,” says a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry. “It is totally groundless to refuse the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on the excuse that developing countries such as China have not shouldered their responsibility.” British journalist Charles Secrett shows how responsible the US is for the environmental depredations Kyoto attempts to repair: “The US, with 5 percent of the world’s population, emits almost a quarter of the world’s carbon dioxide, the main climate-changing gas. It promised to cut emissions by 7 percent over 1990 levels by 2012 at the latest, but its emissions in fact rose by more than 10 percent between 1990 and 2000. Bush’s campaign for the US presidency was backed by major oil giants, including Exxon, which also led the campaign in the US against the Kyoto treaty.” Fellow British journalist Ed Vulliamy adds: “The story behind the singular determination of Bush to fly in the face of world opinion, the sentiments of most Americans, and even many in his own government reveals adherence to ideological rigor and a payment of debts to the business interests that helped him to the White House—above all, oil and coal. Oil runs through every sinew and vein of the Bush administration; rarely, if ever, has a Western government been so intimately entwined with a single industry.” [Carter, 2004, pp. 270-271]

EPA administrator Christie Todd Whitman tells reporters that the Bush administration has “no interest in implementing” the Kyoto Protocol. [BBC, 3/28/2001; Associated Press, 3/28/2001; Environmental News Network, 3/28/2001; CBS News, 3/28/2001; CNN, 3/29/2001] The treaty would require 39 industrialized nations to cut emissions of six greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride—to an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012. The US would be required to reduce its emissions by about 7 percent. The protocol will not go into effect until it has been ratified by countries that were responsible for at least 55 percent of the world’s carbon emissions in 1990. [BBC, 3/29/2001; BBC, 9/29/2001] The United States is the world’s largest polluter and therefore its refusal to support the treaty represents a significant setback. In 1990, the US was responsible for 36.1 percent of greenhouse emissions. [BBC, 6/4/2004] The Bush administration complains that the treaty would harm US economic interests and that it unfairly puts too much of the burden on industrialized nations while not seeking to limit pollution from developing nations. [BBC, 3/29/2001]

Former Reagan-era Interior Secretary James Watt, who once bragged that under his regime “We will mine more, drill more, cut more timber,” tells a reporter, “Everything [Vice President Dick] Cheney’s saying, everything the president’s saying, they’re saying exactly what we were saying 20 years ago, precisely. Twenty years later, it sounds like they’ve just dusted off the old work.” [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 8/3/2004]

Representatives of 13 environmentalist groups meet with officials from Vice President Cheney’s energy task force (the National Energy Policy Development Group—see May 16, 2001). Since late January, some 40 task force meetings have been held, all with oil and energy company executives and lobbyists (see Before January 20, 2001, After January 20, 2001, Mid-February, 2001, Mid-February, 2001, March 5, 2001, March 20, 2001, March 21, 2001, March 22, 2001, April 12, 2001. April 17, 2001, and April 17, 2001 and After). Today is the one day where environmental groups are allowed to have any input. Anna Aurilio of the US Public Interest Group will later say, “It was clear to us that they were just being nice to us.” (Notably, the only people ever identified as “lobbyists” by the task force to the press are the representatives from the environmental groups from today’s meeting.) Their input is neither wanted nor used; an initial draft of the task force’s report has already been prepared and President Bush has already been briefed on its contents. The names of the various officials, executives, lobbyists, and representatives who meet with the task force will not be released for six years (see July 18, 2007). Until this meeting, the only environmentalist group to meet with the Cheney task force has been the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, founded in 1998 by conservative tax activist Grover Norquist and Gale Norton, now the Bush administration’s Secretary of the Interior. That group is now run by Italia Federici, described by the Washington Post as “socially involved” with Norton’s deputy, J. Steven Griles. [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 18; Washington Post, 7/18/2007]

USOGA logo. [Source: US Oil and Gas Association]An official from the oil giant Conoco, along with two officials from the US Oil and Gas Association (USOGA), meet with Vice President Cheney’s energy task force (the National Energy Policy Development Group—see May 16, 2001). In November 2005, ConocoPhillips CEO James Mulva will claim that no one from Conoco ever met with the task force (see November 16, 2005). [Washington Post, 11/16/2005]

Shell Oil logo. [Source: Terra Daily (.com)]Royal Dutch/Shell Group chairman Sir Mark Moody Stuart, Shell Oil chairman Steven Miller, and two other officials from those firms meet with Vice President Cheney’s energy task force (the National Energy Policy Development Group—see May 16, 2001). In November 2005, Shell Oil president John Hofmeister will claim that no one from Shell ever met with the task force (see November 16, 2005). [Washington Post, 11/16/2005]

Vice President Cheney meets with Enron CEO Kenneth Lay as part of Cheney’s secretive energy task force (the National Energy Policy Development Group—see May 16, 2001). Though Cheney may not know it, Enron is on the verge of collapse, with liabilities far outweighing assets and heavily doctored earnings statements. Enron’s only income generation comes from the unregulated energy markets in California and other Western states (see January 23, 2001). Enron traders are gouging the California markets at an unprecedented pace; as authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein later write, Enron is “taking power plants off-line to create shortages, booking transmission lines for current that never move[s], and shuttling electricity back and forth across state lines to circumvent price controls,” among a plethora of other illegal market manipulations. Ignoring California's Energy Crisis - Unable to make a profit between buying Enron’s energy at staggering prices and then selling it at regulated rates, one of California’s two largest utility companies has filed for bankruptcy and the other has accepted a government bailout. California is in a calamitous energy crisis. Governor Gray Davis is pleading for rate caps that would help both utility companies and consumers. But price caps are the last thing Lay wants. Once in Cheney’s office, Lay gives Cheney a three-page memo outlining Enron’s recommendations for the administration’s national energy policy Cheney’s group is developing. Prominently featured in the memo is the following recommendation: “The administration should reject any attempt to deregulate wholesale power markets by adopting price caps.” Almost every recommendation in the Lay memo will find its way into the energy task force’s final report. Cheney may not know that Enron is in such dire financial straits, but he does know that energy prices in California have gone from $30 to $300 per megawatthour, with periodic jumps to as high as $1,500. He also knows that Enron’s profits in California, along with other power producers, have gone up 400% to 600%. Price Caps in Spite of Lay, Cheney - Lay does not get his way; the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will override Cheney’s arguments and impose price caps on energy traders working in California. The state’s energy prices are brought under control, Enron’s trading schemes—luridly given such sobriquets as “Death Star,” “Fat Boy,” and “Get Shorty”—are brought to an end, and Enron collapses six months later (see December 2, 2001). Cheney will have a measure of revenge by forcing one of Lay’s adversaries on FERC, Curtis Hebert, out of his position (see August 14, 2001). Avoiding Scrutiny and Oversight - This meeting and others are cleverly designed to avoid legal government oversight. According to the Federal Advisory Committees Act (FACA), the energy task force should be subject to public accountability because private parties—in this case, oil and gas industry executives and lobbyists—are helping shape government policy. Cheney’s legal counsel, David Addington, devises a simple scheme to avoid oversight. When a group of corporate lobbyists come together to create policy, a government official is present. Suddenly, FACA does not apply, and the task force need not provide any information whatsoever to the public. Dubose and Bernstein will later write: “It was bold as [artist] Rene Magritte’s near-photographic representation of a pipe over the inscription ceci n’est pas une pipe—‘this is not a pipe.’ Fifteen oil industry lobbyists meet in the Executive Office Building and one midlevel bureaucrat from the Department of Energy steps into the room—and voila, ceci n’est pas une foule de lobbyists. Because one government employee sat in with every group of lobbyists, a committee of outside advisers was not a committee of outside advisers.” Between Addington’s bureaucratic end-around and Cheney’s chairmanship of the working group giving the entire business the cloak of executive privilege, little information gets out of the group. “The whole thing was designed so that the presence of a government employee at a meeting could keep the Congress out,” a Congressional staff lawyer later says. It also keeps the press at bay. [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 3-4, 10]

George Skelton, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, gets an unexpected call asking if he wants to interview Vice President Cheney. Skelton thinks the call might be to lay some groundwork for the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. But Cheney wants to talk energy. Skelton is happy to oblige: energy prices are out of control in California. Cheney doesn’t just want to talk energy, though, he wants to talk about how bad an idea price caps are (see April 17, 2001 and After). “Price caps provide short-term relief for politicians,” Cheney says, in an oblique swipe at California’s Democratic governor, Gray Davis. He continues, “But they do nothing to deal with the basic, fundamental problem.” Skelton asks if the administration will support temporary price caps to get California through the immediate crisis period, and Cheney replies: “Six months? Six years? Once politicians can no longer resist the temptation to go with price caps, they usually are unable to muster the courage to end them.… I don’t see that as a possibility.” Cheney goes on: “Frankly, California is looked on by many folks as a classic example of the kinds of problems that arise when you do use price caps.” What Skelton does not know is that Cheney is echoing the recommendations of Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, whose company is primarily responsible for the California energy crisis. [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 4-5]

House Democrats Henry Waxman (D-CA) and John Dingell (D-MI) write to Andrew Lundquist, the executive director of the Cheney energy task force (see January 29, 2001), asking for access to the task force’s records. Waxman and Dingell ask with whom the task force met and what had been said at those meetings. They base their request on the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), an open-government law that states when nongovernment officials, such as energy company officials or lobbyists, help craft public policy, the government must ensure that a balance of viewpoints is represented and such meetings must be open to the press and the public. Two weeks later, Cheney’s chief counsel, David Addington, replies, denying Waxman and Dingell any information. Addington says that FACA does not apply to the task force, and attaches a memo from Lundquist asserting that while nongovernmental officials have been part of the task force’s deliberations, since they were not official members of the task force, their participation does not count. “These meetings… were simply forums to collect individuals views rather than to bring a collective judgment to bear,” Addington writes. Addington then advises the representatives that they need to show “due regard for the constitutional separation of powers,” claims that the White House can assert executive privilege over the task force’s records, and finishes with the assertion that Congress is not even entitled to the information Addington has provided—he has done so, he writes, “as a matter of comity between the executive and legislative branches.” [General Accounting Office, 8/25/2003 ; Savage, 2007, pp. 87-88]

At the Associated Press’s annual meeting, Vice President Dick Cheney says the US needs to add another 1,300 to 1,900 new power plants to the country’s energy infrastructure over the next 20 years. He calls for the building of nuclear power plants and more coal-fired power plants that use clean technologies. Nuclear power is one of “the cleanest methods of power generation that we know,” he says. “If we’re serious about environmental protection, then we must seriously question the wisdom of backing away from what is, as a matter of record, a safe, clean, and very plentiful energy source.” On the issue of energy conservation, which some believe should be a core component of any plan aimed at reducing carbon emissions and US dependency on foreign oil, Cheney says, “To speak exclusively of conservation is to duck the tough issues. Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis—all by itself—for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.” [Washington Post, 5/1/2001]

The Bush administration cancels the 2004 deadline for automobile companies to develop prototype “supercars” capable of getting as much as 80 miles per gallon. The supercar program—initiated during the Clinton administration—will be replaced with one that focuses on “longer-term technologies,” according to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. The federal government has so far sunk $1.4 billion into the “supercars” program. [Philadelphia Inquirer, 5/10/2001]

The General Accounting Office (GAO), the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, sends David Addington, the chief counsel to Vice President Cheney, a letter declaring that it intends to review the composition and activities of Cheney’s energy task force (see January 29, 2001). Addington is the one who issued the flat refusal to allow members of Congress to see any of the minutes or documents generated by the task force (see April 19 - May 4, 2001); in response, the members of Congress who requested the information asked GAO chief and comptroller general David Walker for help in investigating the task force. Walker is quite bipartisan, having worked for the Reagan and Bush-Quayle administrations before being appointed to the chairmanship of the GAO by President Clinton. [Savage, 2007, pp. 88] Addington will reply to Walker, denying that the GAO has any authority to investigate the task force (see May 16 - 17, 2001). In 2007, author Charlie Savage will call the Cheney-Addington battle with the GAO an early instance of the Bush administration’s fight to claim ever-widening presidential powers at the expense of Congress (see January 21, 2001).

The General Accounting Office (GAO) tries five times to arrange a meeting with David Addington, the chief counsel for Vice President Cheney, regarding the GAO’s request for information about Cheney’s secret energy task force (see January 29, 2001). Addington rebuffs all attempts to meet with GAO officials, and instead sends a letter refusing to comply with the GAO’s request (see May 16 - 17, 2001). On May 17, Addington leaves a voicemail on a GAO telephone saying that he is not authorized to meet with officials to discuss the task force, but that his letter is complete and “self-explanatory.” [General Accounting Office, 8/25/2003 ]

President Bush signs Executive Order 13211. It is a verbatim copy of a “suggested” order sent in March by American Petroleum Institute official James Ford (see March 20, 2001). The executive order, enigmatically titled “Actions Concerning Regulations That Significantly Affect Energy Supply, Distribution, or Use,” exempts certain industry actions from federal review. [White House, 5/22/2001; Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 17]

EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman tells the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee that she doesn’t know of any proposal to drop the government’s New Source Review (NSR)lawsuits against utility and energy companies. Her statement is in response to a question from Senator Hillary Clinton who noted that there were reports (see After January 22, 2001) of an internal White House debate over the suits. [US Congress, 5/15/2001, pp. 31-32 ; Reuters, 5/15/2001] In 1999, the EPA had accused the companies of illegally releasing tens of millions of tons of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions in violation of the NSR section of the Clean Air Act (see November 3, 1999).

National Energy Policy report. [Source: Climate Change Technology Program]Vice President Cheney’s National Energy Policy Development Group releases its energy plan. The plan, titled Reliable, Affordable, and Environmentally Sound Energy for America’s Future, warns that the quantity of oil imported per day will need to rise more than fifty percent to 16.7 million barrels by 2020. “A significant disruption in world oil supplies could adversely affect our economy and our ability to promote key foreign and economic policy objectives, regardless of the level of US dependence on oil imports,” the report explains. To meet the US’s rising demand for oil, the plan calls for expanded oil and gas drilling on public land and the easing of regulatory barriers to building nuclear power plants. [US President, 5/16/2001, pp. 8.5 ; Associated Press, 12/9/2002; Guardian, 1/23/2003]Emphasis on Foreign Oil - The report places substantial emphasis on oil from the Persian Gulf region. Its chapter on “strengthening global alliances” states: “By any estimation, Middle East oil producers will remain central to world oil security. The Gulf will be a primary focus of US international energy policy.” [US President, 5/16/2001, pp. 8.5 ] But it also suggests that the US cannot depend exclusively on traditional sources of supply to provide the growing amount of oil that it needs and will have to obtain substantial supplies from new sources, such as the Caspian states, Russia, Africa, and the Atlantic Basin. Additionally, it notes that the US cannot rely on market forces alone to gain access to these added supplies, but will also require a significant effort on the part of government officials to overcome foreign resistance to the outward reach of American energy companies. [Japan Today, 4/30/2002]Revamping of Clean Air Act - The plan also calls for a clarification of the New Source Review section of the Clean Air Act, which requires energy companies to install state-of-the-art emission control technology whenever it makes major modifications to its plants. The administration’s energy plan gives the Environmental Protection Agency 90 days to review NSR and determine whether it is discouraging companies from constructing or expanding power plants and refineries. It also instructs the attorney general to review current NSR litigation efforts against utility companies to determine whether those efforts are contributing to the country’s energy problems. “The outcome could determine whether the government drops some cases, approaches others more leniently, or even renegotiates settlements already reached,” the New York Times reports. [US President, 5/16/2001, pp. 8.5 ; New York Times, 5/18/2001]Dodging the EPA - The representative of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the task force had blocked the recommendation of a technique called “hydraulic fracturing.” Sometimes called “fracking,” the technique, used to extract natural gas from the earth, often contaminates aquifers used for drinking water and irrigation. The recommendation was removed to placate the EPA official, then quietly reinserted into the final draft. Halliburton, Cheney’s former firm, is the US leader in the use of hydraulic fracturing. [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 18]Cheney Stayed Largely behind the Scenes - Much of the task force’s work was done by a six-member staff, led by executive director Andrew Lundquist, a former aide to senators Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Frank Murkowski (R-AK). Lundquist served as the Bush-Cheney campaign’s energy expert, earning the nickname “Light Bulb” from the president. Lundquist will leave the Bush administration and become a lobbyist for such firms as British Petroleum, Duke Energy, and the American Petroleum Institute. Much of the report is shaped by Lundquist and his colleagues, who in turn relied heavily on energy company executives and their lobbyists. For himself, Cheney did not meet openly with most of the participants, remaining largely behind the scenes. He did meet with Enron executive Kenneth Lay (see April 17, 2001 and After), with officials from Sandia National Laboratories to discuss their economic models of the energy industry, with energy industry consultants, and with selected Congressmen. Cheney also held meetings with oil executives such as British Petroleum’s John Browne that are not listed on the task force’s calendar. [Washington Post, 7/18/2007]Controversial Meetings with Energy Executives - Both prior to and after the publication of this report, Cheney and other Task Force officials meet with executives from Enron and other energy companies, including one meeting a month and a half before Enron declares bankruptcy in December 2001 (see After January 20, 2001), Mid-February, 2001, March 21, 2001, March 22, 2001, April 12, 2001, and April 17, 2001). Two separate lawsuits are later filed to reveal details of how the government’s energy policy was formed and whether Enron or other players may have influenced it, but the courts will eventually allow the Bush administration to keep the documents secret (see May 10, 2005). [Associated Press, 12/9/2002]

In response to a General Accounting Office (GAO) demand for information about the energy task force chaired by Vice President Cheney (see May 8, 2001), Cheney’s chief legal adviser, David Addington, rebuffs the GAO, claiming that the agency has no authority under the Constitution to investigate the task force. The task force is a creature of the executive branch, Addington argues, and as an arm of the legislative branch, the GAO cannot “inquire into the exercise of authorities committed to the executive by the Constitution.” The president can keep any such government deliberations entirely secret from Congress and the public, Addington asserts, in order to guarantee the “candor” of the advice he receives. GAO chief David Walker replies to Addington, rejecting his interpretation of the Constitution. Addington will, in the words of author Charlie Savage, “follow… injury with insult,” responding to Walker’s request for information by conceding that Congress might have the right to know about the direct costs incurred by the task force, and sending 77 pages of mundane expense reports (see June 21, 2001). The highlight of those reports: task force chair Andrew Lundquist’s ordering of a pizza on his own credit card. Walker will not be cowed by Addington’s flip rejoinder. [Savage, 2007, pp. 88-89]

Cinergy Corp announces that it is backing out of its settlement with the Justice Department. In 1999, the Justice Department filed a suit against the company for allegedly violating the New Source Review section of the Clean Air Act. Cinergy’s decision to pull out of the settlement comes less than a week after the Bush administration announced that it would review all of the Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement cases (see May 16, 2001). According to the terms of the settlement (see December 21, 2000), the Ohio-based utility company would have spent $1.4 billion on environmental improvements to their plants reducing its annual emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide by an estimated 500,000 tons. [Air Daily, 5/21/2001; National Environment Trust, 6/29/2006]

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) calls for the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs to hold hearings on a possible improper relationship between Enron and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Her call for an investigation is prompted by media reports of Enron CEO Kenneth Lay pressuring FERC chairman Curtis Hebert to deregulate the energy industry in ways favorable to Enron (see August 14, 2001). Feinstein writes to Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), the ranking member of the committee, “Despite evidence of manipulation and price gouging in both the electricity and natural gas markets in California and the West, and a finding by FERC last November of ‘unjust and unreasonable’ rates, the commission has failed to take the actions necessary to bring reliability and stability to the marketplace… [I]t is clear that the citizens of the United States, especially the people of California, who are suffering from FERC’s failure to do its job, deserve an investigation and full public hearing into what happened. FERC is a $175 million a year agency charged with regulating the energy industry, and it would be unconscionable if any of the nation’s electricity traders or generators were in a position to be able to determine who chairs or becomes a member of the commission.” Lay is accused of forcing Hebert from his position in favor of another, more Enron-friendly chairman, Pat Wood. Feinstein adds, “Since FERC has refused to fulfill its legally mandated function under the Federal Power Act to restore ‘just and reasonable’ electricity rates, we need to ask whether undue influence by the companies that FERC regulates has resulted in its failure to act… In California, the total cost of electricity in 1999 was $7 billion. This climbed to $28 billion in 2000 and is predicted to reach $70 billion this year. At the same time, with FERC refusing to act, power generators and marketers have made record profits. The people of our nation deserve a full investigation.” [US Senate, 5/25/2001]

Larisa E. Dobriansky, deputy assistant secretary for national energy policy at the Department of Energy, meets with ExxonMobil lobbyist Randy Randol and the Global Climate Coalition, a group formed to oppose restrictions on greenhouse gases. Members of the coalition include ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute. In the notes she prepared for the meeting, she wrote, “POTUS [President Bush] rejected Kyoto, in part, based on input from you.” [Mother Jones, 5/2005]

A Klamath River farmer and prospective voter. [Source: Sierra Times]Interior Department official Sue Ellen Woodbridge is contacted, to her surprise and initial disbelief, by Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney is concerned with a situation developing in Oregon, a battleground electoral state that the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign had lost by less than half a percentage point in November 2000. Drought-stricken ranchers and farmers—largely Republican in makeup—are clamoring for the irrigation water they need to keep their croplands and pastures green. [Washington Post, 6/27/2007] The farmers and ranchers of the area are key to the re-election of Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR). [CounterPunch, 7/16/2007] But federal biologists say that the Endangered Species Act gives the government no choice: if the water is released, two imperiled species of fish will be gravely impacted. Both science and the law are on the side of the fish, but Cheney steps in, apparently more out of political concerns for Oregon than for the farmers and ranchers. According to Cheney’s aides, he first looks for a way around the law. According to an Oregon congressman who lobbies for the farmers, when Cheney finds no way to circumvent the law, he instead attacks the science protecting the fish (see April 2002). The government eventually declares, in spite of all scientific evidence, that the water release and subsequent draining of the Klamath River basin will not harm the fish. Instead, the water release causes the largest fish kill in modern Western history (see September 2002). Cheney’s role in the fish kill will not be revealed until 2007. [Washington Post, 6/27/2007] After the Washington Post reveals Cheney’s role in the fish kill, the House will open hearings on Cheney’s activities (see June 27-28, 2007).

David Addington, the chief counsel to Vice President Cheney, writes another letter rebuffing the General Accounting Office (GAO)‘s attempt to secure information about Cheney’s secret energy task force (see January 29, 2001 and May 16, 2001). This time, Addington writes that the GAO lacks the authority to obtain the requested information. He reasons that in statute 31 USC 717, which requires the GAO’s chief, the comptroller general, to “evaluate the results of a program or activity the government carries out under existing law,” the words “existing law” do not include the US Constitution. Under statute 31 USC 712, which requires the comptroller general to investigate “all matters related to the receipt, disbursement, and use of public money,” the task force is only required to inform the GAO of financial cost information—hence Addington’s previous letter informing the GAO about the task force’s mundane expenses (see May 16 - 17, 2001 and June 21, 2001). [General Accounting Office, 8/25/2003 ]

Pursuant to his letter to the General Accounting Office (GAO—see June 7, 2001), David Addington, the chief counsel for Vice President Cheney, sends the GAO 77 pages of financial information relating to Cheney’s secret energy task force. The documents cover little more than mundane expenses by the task force, including a pizza bought by task force chief Andrew Lundquist. The GAO will characterize the documents as “virtually impossible to analyze, as they consisted, for example, of pages with dollar amounts but no indication of the nature or the purpose of the expenditure. Nor did the materials reflect any apparent expenses in connection with the work of the six assigned [task force] staff.” [General Accounting Office, 8/25/2003 ; Savage, 2007, pp. 88-89]

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Justice Department has put all of its New Source Review (NSR) investigations on hold, pending the outcome of a review of NSR by the Environmental Protection Agency. Taken as a whole, the Justice Department probes constitute one of the largest environmental investigations in US history. It has been looking at dozens of firms accused by the EPA, under Clinton, of expanding power plants or refineries without installing state-of-the-art pollution control systems, as required by the NSR section of the Clean Air Act. Together these plants are alleged to have spewed hundreds of millions of tons of illegal emissions into the atmosphere. According to EPA spokeswoman Tina Kreisher, the agency—under order from the White House (see May 16, 2001)—is now trying to determine whether companies can be given “more operational and design flexibility” to meet NSR requirements. Likewise, the Justice Department is also conducting a review. Cristine Romano, a spokeswoman for the department, says the Justice Deparmtment intends to look at the “legal soundness” of the NSR investigations. The Journal also reports that the Justice Department is actually advising companies not to sign settlements, but instead to wait until the EPA review has been completed. For example, Dominion Resources almost agreed to spend $1.2 billion on pollution-control upgrades at its plants as part of a settlement. But according to the Journal, it decided not to on advice offered by the Justice Department. [Wall Street Journal, 6/22/2001]

Judicial Watch logo. [Source: Judicial Watch]The conservative government watchdog organization Judicial Watch sends a letter to Vice President Dick Cheney demanding to see the records of his secret energy task force (see January 29, 2001 and May 16, 2001). Chris Farrell, the organization’s director of investigations and research, saw a May 2001 Newsweek article about the task force. Farrell later says he was struck by the similarities between Cheney’s energy task force and the 1994 health care task force chaired by then-First Lady Hillary Clinton. “The government can’t operate in secret,” Farrell will later say. “They are answerable to the people. There are appropriate times for secrecy on military and intelligence matters, but the notion that national policy on a matter like energy or health care can be developed in secret is offensive and counter to the Constitution.” Farrell, along with Judicial Watch chairman Larry Klayman and president Thomas Fitton, agreed that the task force violates core conservative principles, and made the decision to challenge Cheney’s office. Their letter notes that the rules governing the task force are clear: if the executive branch chooses to solicit outside advice while writing policy, then the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) is triggered, requiring the government to make the details of those meetings public (the same argument made by the General Accounting Office—see May 8, 2001). “Judicial Watch respectfully requests that, in light of the questionable legal and ethical practices, negative publicity, and public outrage surrounding Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 1994 national health-care policy development group, you direct the [energy task force] to abide by the FACA. [Such openness] will instill public trust and confidence in the operations of the [task force] and insure that the national policy is formulated, discussed, and acted upon in a manner consistent with the best traditions of our Constitutional Republic.” [Savage, 2007, pp. 91-92] Cheney’s office will refuse the request (see July 5, 2001). In return, Judicial Watch will sue for the documents’ release (see July 14, 2001).

David Addington, the chief counsel to Vice President Cheney, refuses to accept any more communications from the General Accounting Office (GAO) regarding the GAO’s attempt to learn about the doings of Cheney’s secret energy task force (see January 29, 2001 and May 16, 2001). Addington directs GAO officials to contact a lawyer at the Department of Justice with any further inquiries. [General Accounting Office, 8/25/2003 ]

David Addington, the chief counsel for Vice President Dick Cheney, writes a three-sentence letter to the government oversight organization Judicial Watch, rejecting its request for the records of Cheney’s secret energy task force (see June 25, 2001). Addington uses the same argument he used to reject the General Accounting Office’s request for records of the task force (see June 7, 2001): since open-government laws do not apply to the task force, in his opinion, there will be “no disclosure of the materials you requested.” Judicial Watch will file a lawsuit demanding the task force’s records be made available to the public (see July 14, 2001). [Savage, 2007, pp. 92]

A study conducted by the General Accounting Office (GAO) finds that the scientists and experts who sit on the Science Advisory Board panels which advise the EPA often have ties to the affected industries or other conflicts of interest. The study, requested by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.), says that EPA officials regularly fail to identify potential conflicts of interest when panel members are chosen and do not adequately disclose the existence of such conflicts to the public. Though it is prohibited for a federal employee to participate in any “particular matter” that could affect their financial interests, there is an exemption that permits special government employees to serve on advisory panels when the topic being studied directly affects the financial interests of their employer—as long as the employer is not “singularly affected.” [Washington Post, 7/16/2001]

The General Accounting Office, repeatedly rebuffed by Vice President Cheney’s office in its attempt to secure information about Cheney’s secret energy task force (see May 8, 2001, May 10-17, 2001, May 16 - 17, 2001, June 7, 2001, June 21, 2001, and July 3, 2001), sends a letter written by its head, Comptroller General David Walker, to Cheney. Walker notes the repeated rebuffs from Cheney’s chief counsel, David Addington, and others in his office, and once again lays out his request for information regarding the task force’s participants, minutes of meetings, and other relevant information. When Walker follows up his letter with a phone call to Cheney on July 30, Cheney will fail to take the call. [General Accounting Office, 8/25/2003 ]

Department of Energy safety specialist Chris Steele reads a memo that alerts him to the existence of a secret nuclear waste dump at the Los Alamos nuclear facility. The waste is being stored in an unsecured, unprotected steel building on site, and has been on site for five years. A shocked Steele immediately shuts down the nuclear dump, forcing it to be relocated to protected areas. Steele notes that the existence of such a waste dump is a violation of the law and a serious threat to the health and safety of workers, the public, and the environment. Steele recalls that a wildfire burned part of the Los Alamos facility in May 2000; only the fact that the fire did not jump the road across from the waste dump saved it from going up in radioactive flames. [Carter, 2004, pp. 17-18; Vanity Fair, 2/15/2004]

Testifying before a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, EPA administrator Christine Whitman names several Clean Air Act programs that the Bush administration is considering terminating. One of the programs slated for elimination is the New Source Review, which requires power companies to install state-of-the-art pollution controls whenever they build new plants or add additional capacity to existing ones. [US Congress, 7/26/2001, pp. 104]

ABC reporter Ted Koppel asks Vice President Dick Cheney about meetings with his “pals” from the oil and energy industries (see January 29, 2001 and April 17, 2001 and After). Koppel is referring to the attempts by Congress to be given the names of the participants in Cheney’s energy task force meetings. Cheney says: “I think it’s going to have to be resolved in court, and I think that’s probably appropriate. I think, in fact, that this is the first time the GAO [Government Accountability Office] has ever issued a so-called demand letter to a president/vice president. I’m a duly elected constitutional officer. The idea that any member of Congress can demand from me a list of everybody I meet with and what they say strikes me as—as inappropriate, and not in keeping with the Constitution.” Authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein will later write, “The vice president was deftly turning a request for records into a constitutional struggle between the legislative and executive branches.” Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), who issued the original requests before turning them over to the GAO, will put his demands for information on hold because of the 9/11 attacks and the war in Afghanistan, but the case will indeed end up in court (see February 22, 2002). [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 11-12]

The General Accounting Office (GAO)‘s chief, David Walker, backs down from his initial request for all pertinent documents and records of Vice President Cheney’s energy task force (see May 8, 2001). Instead, Walker modifies his request to ask for just the names of the lobbyists at the task force meetings, the dates of the meetings, the general topic(s) of discussion, and the cost of the meetings. Cheney will also refuse this request, and will escalate his rhetorical war against Walker and the GAO in defense of “executive privilege” (see July 26, 2001 and August 2, 2001). [General Accounting Office, 8/25/2003 ; Savage, 2007, pp. 92-93]

Vice President Cheney’s chief counsel, David Addington, responds to the General Accounting Office (GAO)‘s offer to scale back its request for information regarding Cheney’s energy task force (see July 31, 2001) with another blanket refusal. Addington again asserts that the GAO has no authority to make such a request (see June 7, 2001). [General Accounting Office, 8/25/2003 ]

Vice President Cheney sends a letter to Congressional leaders demanding that they order the General Accounting Office (GAO)‘s chief, David Walker, to immediately withdraw his request for records pertaining to Cheney’s secret energy task force (see July 18, 2001). Walker has already scaled back his initial request (see July 31, 2001), but Cheney asserts that even the limited information Walker is requesting would violate “the confidentiality of communications among a president, a vice president, the president’s other senior advisers, and others.” Cheney also rails against “actions undertaken by an agent of the Congress, the comptroller general [Walker], which exceeded his lawful authority and which if given effect, would unconstitutionally interfere with the functioning of the executive branch.” [Savage, 2007, pp. 93] The GAO notes that Cheney’s letter does not cite the specific information requested by the GAO, as required by law. [General Accounting Office, 8/25/2003 ]

In a letter to Senator James Jeffords, California Air Resources Board executive director Michael P. Kenny says that a recent testimony by C. Boyden Gray may have misled Congress into believing “that since California has made considerable progress toward achieving clean air standards there is justification
for relaxing or eliminating the New Source Review program.” Rather, according to Kenny, the continuation of the New Source Review program is essential. “[I]n both verbal and written comments to the US Environmental Protection Agency (enclosed) we shared our experience with the success of New Source Review in California.… The New Source Review program in California… has… resulted in the construction of some of the cleanest power plants in the nation.… New Source Review is based on the solid premise that new emissions should be minimized and mitigated so that industrial growth can continue without undermining progress toward achieving clean air mandates.… We believe that any weakening of New Source Review control requirements will increase the need to achieve a greater proportion of emission reductions from existing sources and will likely result in a less effective pollution control program.” [US Congress, 7/26/2001, pp. 104]

Curtis Hebert of the FERC. [Source: PBS]Curtis Hebert is replaced by Pat Wood as the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Hebert announced his resignation on August 6. [US Department of Energy, 12/2001] Hebert, a Clinton appointee who nevertheless is a conservative Republican, an ally of Senator Trent Lott (R-MS), and quite friendly towards the energy corporations, had been named to the FERC shortly before Clinton left office; Bush named him to chair the commission in January 2001. [Consortium News, 5/26/2006]Replaced at Enron Request - Hebert is apparently replaced at the request of Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, who did not find Hebert responsive enough in doing Enron’s bidding. Hebert had just taken the position of FERC chairman in January when he received a phone call from Lay, in which Lay pressured him to back a faster pace in opening up access to the US electricity transmission grid to Enron and other corporations. (Lay later admits making the call, but will say that keeping or firing Hebert is the president’s decision, not his.) When Hebert did not move fast enough for Lay, he is replaced by Pat Wood, a close friend of both Lay and President Bush. [Guardian, 5/26/2001; Los Angeles Times, 12/11/2001] Lay apparently threatened Hebert with the loss of his job if he didn’t cooperate with Enron’s request for a more pro-Enron regulatory posture. [CNN, 1/14/2002]Opposed Enron Consolidation Plan - Hebert was leery of Enron’s plan to force consolidation of the various state utilities into four huge regional transmission organizations (RTOs), a plan that would have given Enron and other energy traders far larger markets for their energy sales. Hebert, true to his conservative beliefs, is a states’ rights advocate who was uncomfortable with the plan to merge the state utilities into four federal entities. Lay told Hebert flatly that if he supported the transition to the RTOs, Lay would back him in retaining his position with FERC. Hebert told reporters that he was “offended” at the veiled threat, but knew that Lay could back up his pressure, having already demonstrated his influence over selecting Bush administration appointees by giving Bush officials a list of preferred candidates and personally interviewing at least one potential FERC nominee (see January 21, 2001). [PBS, 2/2/2002; Consortium News, 5/26/2006] According to Hebert, Lay told him that “he and Enron would like to support me as chairman, but we would have to agree on principles.” [Guardian, 5/26/2001] Hebert added to another reporter, “I think he would be a much bigger supporter of mine if I was willing to do what he wanted me to do.” Lay recently admitted to making such a list of preferred candidates: “I brought a list. We certainly presented a list, and I think that was by way of letter. As I recall I signed a letter which, in fact, had some recommendations as to people that we thought would be good commissioners.…I’m not sure I ever personally interviewed any of them but I think in fact there were conversations between at least some of them and some of my people from time to time.” [PBS, 2/2/2002]Cheney Behind Ouster - Joe Garcia, a Florida energy regulator, says he was interviewed by Lay and other Enron officials. After Hebert made it clear to Lay that he wouldn’t go along with Lay’s plans to reorganize the nation’s utilities, Vice President Dick Cheney, who supervises the Bush administration’s energy policies (see May 16, 2001, began questioning Hebert’s fitness. [Guardian, 5/26/2001] Cheney said in May 2001, “Pat Wood has got to be the new chairman of FERC.” In private, Cheney said then that Hebert was out as chairman and Wood was in, though Hebert did not know at the time that his days were numbered. [PBS, 2/2/2002] “It just confirms what we believed and what we’ve been saying, that the Bush-Cheney energy plan is written by corporations and it’s in the interests of the corporations,” says the National Environmental Trust’s Kevin Curtis. [Guardian, 5/26/2001] Not only was Hebert not responsive enough to Lay’s pressure, but he had become a focus of criticism for his refusal to scrutinize Enron’s price gouging in the California energy deregulation debacle. Wood’s more moderate position helps ease the worries of other states themselves losing confidence in the Bush administration’s deregulation advocacy. [American Prospect, 1/2/2002]Hebert Investigating Enron Schemes - And even more unsettling for Enron, Hebert was beginning to investigate Enron’s complicated derivative-financing procedures, an investigation that may have led to an untimely exposure of Enron’s financial exploitation of the US’s energy deregulation—exploitation that was going on under plans nicknamed, among other monikers, “Fat Boy,” “Death Star,” “Get Shorty,” all of which siphoned electricity away from areas that needed it most and being paid exorbitant fees for phantom transfers of energy supposedly to ease transmission-line congestion. [Consortium News, 5/26/2006] “One of our problems is that we do not have the expertise to truly unravel the complex arbitrage activities of a company like Enron,” Hebert recently told reporters. “We’re trying to do it now and we may have some results soon.” [Guardian, 5/26/2001] Instead, Hebert is forced out of FERC. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) called for an investigation into Enron’s improper influence of the FERC committee after the media revealed Lay’s phone call to Hebert in May 2001 (see May 25, 2001).

The General Accounting Office (GAO)‘s chief, Comptroller General David Walker, issues a report detailing the history of the GAO’s request for information regarding Vice President Cheney’s secret energy task force, and reiterating its request (see July 31, 2001). The report is sent to President Bush, Cheney, Congress, the attorney general, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). It reads in part: “In communications with the vice president’s counsel… we offered to eliminate our earlier request for minutes and notes and for the information presented by members of the public. Even though we are legally entitled to this information, as a matter of comity, we are scaling back the records we are requesting to exclude these two items of information.… The GAO as an institution, and the comptroller general as an officer of the legislative branch, assist the Congress in exercising its responsibilities under the Constitution to oversee, investigate, and legislate. In order to help members of Congress carry out their role and evaluate the process used to develop the National Energy Policy, GAO needs selected factual and non-deliberative records that the vice president, as chair of the NEPDG [National Energy Policy Development Group, the formal name for Cheney’s task force], or others representing the Group, are in a position to provide GAO. The records we are requesting will assist the review of how the NEPDG spent public funds, how it carried out its activities, and whether applicable law was followed.” [David Walker, 8/17/2001 ; National Review, 2/20/2002]

The Bush administration blocks the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from making any announcement about vermiculite and related problems in towns where it was mined. Vermiculite is dangerous because one of the substances it contains, tremolite, itself contains lethal levels of asbestos fiber and has killed or seriously sickened thousands of inhabitants of Libby, Montana, one of the towns where it was mined. EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman visits Libby at this time, although the vermiculite mine there was shut down in 1990. However, the problem is not confined to Libby; according to EPA records, over 16 billion tons of vermiculite have been shipped to 750 fertilizer and insulation manufacturers throughout the US, and the EPA estimates that between 15 million and 35 million US homes have been insulated with this toxic material. The EPA is thus confronted with an enormously grave problem. After the St. Louis Post-Dispatch breaks the story in late 2002 based on a leak from an unnamed whistleblower, former EPA chief William Ruckelshaus calls the actions of the White House “wrong, unconscionable.” The story becomes even more important when the reason for the White House block becomes known. Vice President Dick Cheney, the former CEO of Halliburton, is pressuring Congress to pass legislation that would absolve companies of any legal liability for claims arising from asbestos exposure. Halliburton itself is facing a tremendous number of asbestos liability claims. [Dean, 2004, pp. 162-163]

Vice President Cheney’s office responds to repeated requests by the General Accounting Office (GAO) for information about Cheney’s secret energy task force (see August 17, 2001) by sending it a list of the task force’s office support staff, and nothing more. The GAO now considers itself empowered by law to file a lawsuit seeking the requested information, and the next day will issue a statement to that effect. [General Accounting Office, 8/25/2003 ]

Family Research Council logo. [Source: Mediamouse (.org)]The Family Research Council (FRC), a Christian conservative organization headed by the Reverend James Dobson, authorizes an advertisement linking Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) to Saddam Hussein. The ad is triggered by Daschle’s opposition to the Bush administration’s desire to drill for oil in the protected Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The ad is released by American Renewal, the lobbying wing of the FRC headed by Richard Lessner, who formerly headed the editorial page staff at the Manchester Union Leader. In a press release announcing the ad, Lessner asks: “What do Saddam Hussein and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle have in common? Neither man wants America to drill for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.” It juxtaposes photos of Daschle and Hussein, and charges that American buys 725,000 barrels of oil a day from Hussein because Daschle “won’t let America drill for oil at home.” Daschle spokesman Doug Hattaway calls the ad “an outrageous, extremist attack at a time when the nation is unified.” Lessner calls the ad an example of “telling the truth” necessitating “tough talk.” Washington Post pundit Dana Milbank says the ad has all “the subtlety of a Scud missile.” [Washington Post, 11/9/2001]

Enron’s logo.
[Source: Enron]Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy—the biggest bankruptcy in history up to that date. [BBC, 1/10/2002] However, in 2002 Enron will reorganize as a pipeline company and will continue working on its controversial Dabhol power plant. [Houston Business Journal, 3/15/2002]

The Environmental Protection Agency inflates its enforcement record by including counterterrorism and narcotics cases led by other agencies. The padded numbers obscure an actual decline in the EPA’s enforcement activity. For example, the agency lumps 190 counterterrorism-related investigations into its annual performance report to Congress, referring to them as EPA-initiated “criminal investigations.” Sometimes an “investigation” involves nothing more than a phone call to an FBI agent who has requested assistance in a case. “I called the FBI and said, ‘If you need us, give us a call.’ That warranted a (criminal) case number. There was no investigation,” one EPA agent will explain to the Sacramento Bee. In another incident, two agents “went out on an interview, and they closed it after the interview.” The EPA counted the visit as a completed investigation. “To me, those are false statistics,” another senior agent tells the newspaper. The resulting numbers, which are reported to Congress and the public, mask “a significant drop-off in the federal government’s pursuit of criminal polluters during the past two years.” [Sacramento Bee, 7/16/2003]

Leading Republican consultant Frank Luntz issues a briefing book for GOP congressional candidates recommending what they should say when discussing issues that are important to the American public. The environment section of the report includes 16 pages of tips on how to discuss global warming and other sensitive issues. In general, Luntz says, candidates need to shy away from making economic arguments, since the party is perceived to be so close to business, and instead portray the party’s platform as being for a “safer,” “cleaner,” and “healthier” environment. Furthermore, candidates must convince their constituents of their “sincerity and concern,” Luntz argues, suggesting that once this has been achieved “the conservative, free market approach to the environment actually has the potential to become quite popular.” [Luntz, 2002 ]Arsenic in the water - Luntz says that the “Bush administration’s suspension of Clinton’s last-minute executive order toughening the federal standard for arsenic in drinking water” was the president’s “biggest public relations misfire.” The “Democrats’ message came through loud and clear: Bush and the Republicans put business interests above public health,” he notes. He says the Republicans should have responded to the debacle with statements asserting the party’s dedication “to the continued improvement of our nation’s water supply, and to ensuring that Americans have the best quality water available.” Secondly, they should have argued that “sound science” does not support the notion that reducing arsenic by the amount specified in the order was in fact necessary. Finally, the question should have been raised as to why Clinton waited until the final moments of his presidency to issue this order. [Luntz, 2002 ]Global Warming - On the issue of global warming, Luntz says: “The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science. Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.” The section is peppered with boxes titled, “Language That Works,” suggesting carefully crafted phrases to convey key points that Luntz says Republicans must get across to their constituents. Luntz says that Republicans must stress that “the scientific debate remains open” and that rushing to conclusions about global warming would harm America. It must be stressed that ratifying the Kyoto protocol would “handcuff” the US and require “unnecessary” regulations that would “hurt moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas.” Furthermore, according to Luntz, it should be made clear that additional regulations would make “American life less safe” by requiring “major lifestyle changes.” Luntz also recommends that GOP politicians avoid using the phrase “global warming,” opting instead for “climate change,” which he notes sounds “less frightening.” [Luntz, 2002 ; Guardian, 3/4/2003]Impact - Not all Republicans agree with Luntz’s advice, Republican Mike Castle says the report fails to address the fact that pollution is a health threat. “If I tried to follow these talking points at a town hall meeting with my constituents, I’d be booed,” he says. Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords, who abandoned the Republican Party in 2001, says the briefing book aims to deceive voters. But others seemingly adopt Luntz’s strategy. [Guardian, 4/4/2003] The Observer will later note that in 2002, Bush’s use of the phrase “global warming” decreases to almost nothing. [Guardian, 3/4/2003] And the Environmental Working Group, which first discloses the memo, finds numerous instances where Bush officials appear to be using Luntz’s recommended language. [Environmental Working Group, 2002]

Michele Merkel, a staff attorney in the EPA’s enforcement division whose specialty is in the area of factory farming, resigns because of the administration’s reluctance to enforce federal regulatory laws and because she believes the livestock industry has too much influence on EPA oversight of factory farms. [Los Angeles Times, 6/3/2002; Knight Ridder, 5/16/2004; Grist Magazine, 5/24/2004] “Once the Bush team came in, I was not allowed to pursue any further air lawsuits against CAFOs [concentrated animal feeding operations],” she tells Muckraker. “We got political cover to continue what was underway, but I was told that new efforts were off-limits. It wasn’t just coming from my EPA superiors, it was coming from the White House.” [Grist Magazine, 5/24/2004] “Ultimately what drove me out of the agency was the anti-enforcement philosophy of the current administration,” Merkel tells the Los Angeles Times. [Los Angeles Times, 6/3/2002]

Vice President Dick Cheney continues to battle the General Accounting Office (GAO)‘s request for the records of his energy task force (see January 29, 2001 and April 17, 2001 and After) in the broadcast media (see July 26, 2001). On Fox News, he reiterates his insistence that he will not turn over any records from the task force unless compelled to do so by the courts, and says indignantly, “They’ve demanded of me that I give Henry Waxman [the California Democratic representative who originated the demand for task force records] a list of everybody I met with, of everything that was discussed, any advice that was revealed, notes and memos of these meetings.” Cheney is lying. The GAO only asked for the minutes from the meetings and the names of the participants (see July 31, 2001 and February 22, 2002), and soon the GAO will scale back its request to nothing more than the names and schedules of the participants and the meetings, not the contents of the meetings themselves. Four years later, when the court case has long been settled in Cheney’s favor (see February 7, 2003), Cheney will still mischaracterize the issue as an improper demand from Congress for an executive branch official to disclose the contents of private conversations and meetings, and therefore destroy “the ability of the president and the vice president to receive unvarnished advice.” Former Justice Department official Bruce Fein will call the argument “bogus, specious, [and] absurd.” [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 12-13] GAO officials call Cheney’s statement a “critical and highly material misrepresentation” of the facts. [National Review, 2/20/2002]

EPA staffers meet with the agency’s top pollution regulator, Jeffrey Holmstead, in his fifth-floor conference room to discuss a February 2004 deadline for creating a rule governing formaldehyde emissions at wood products plants. Holmstead, a lawyer, formerly worked at Latham & Watkins representing one of the nation’s largest plywood producers. Also present at the meeting is William Wehrum, the EPA air office’s general counsel, who had also represented timber interests as a partner of the same law firm. They meet with Timothy Hunt, a lobbyist for the American Forest & Paper Association who is an old acquaintance of Holmstead, and with Claudia M. O’Brien, the association’s lawyer. O’Brien had previously been a law partner of Holmstead’s and Wehrum’s at Latham & Watkins. During the meeting she proposes to exempt “low-risk” plywood, particleboard and other plants from strict emission controls, arguing that such facilities are often located in isolated areas where their emissions pose a relatively small risk to public health. She also contends that the expense of adding new controls to the plants, which the industry complains could cost as much as $1 billion, would make them vulnerable to foreign competition. Holmstead likes the idea and decides that the agency should push the proposal, despite opinions from EPA career attorneys that the exemption would violate the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments (see March 2003). [Los Angeles Times, 5/21/2004]

Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), the chairman of the investigations subcommittee of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and fellow senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Ernest Hollings (D-SC), and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) ask the General Accounting Office (GAO) to evaluate the process by which the Bush administration’s energy policy has been developed (see May 16, 2001). The senators’ request is apparently in support of the GAO’s long-blocked investigation of Vice President Cheney’s energy task force (see January 29, 2001). [General Accounting Office, 8/25/2003 ]

President Bush unveils a plan to reduce the “intensity” of greenhouse gases by 18 percent. Greenhouse gas intensity is the ratio of emissions to economic output, meaning that global warming pollution would continue to grow, but at a slower pace. This target would be achieved through $4.6 billion in tax credits and incentives, spent over a five-year period, to encourage businesses and farmers to cut their emissions. For example, the plan would provide tax credits to businesses that use renewable energy sources. [CNN, 2/14/2006; New York Times, 2/14/2006] Critics of the plan say a voluntary program based on tax credits and incentives represents a weak alternative to the Kyoto Protocol’s mandatory reductions which would cut emissions well below their 1990 levels by 2010. “We’ve found that these voluntary programs just don’t work,” says Joseph Lieberman. [CNN, 2/14/2006] The New York Times notes, “The one thing the climate policy would not do is require anything of anybody.” [New York Times, 2/14/2006] The president also introduces a second plan aimed at curbing air pollution. The “Clear Skies Initiative” would require reductions of sulfur dioxide emissions by 73 percent, nitrogen oxides by 67 percent, and mercury by 69 percent, by 2018. But the plan includes no reductions for carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. Companies would be able to purchase credits from other businesses that have reduced their emissions below required levels. Unlike the plan supported by environmentalists and many Democrats, Bush’s program would delay these reductions until 2010 or later. [CNN, 2/14/2006; New York Times, 2/14/2006]

Anthony Gamboa, the general counsel for the General Accounting Office (GAO), reiterates the GAO’s modification of its original request for documents and records pertaining to Vice President Cheney’s energy task force (see January 29, 2001 and May 16, 2001). In a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, Gamboa writes: “The GAO long ago dropped its request for the minutes and notes of the vice president’s meetings with people outside the government, as well as requests for any materials those individuals have given to Mr. Cheney (see July 31, 2001). The GAO simply seeks the names of those he met in his capacity as head of the energy policy task force, when and where he met them, the subject matter of the meetings, and an explanation of the costs incurred.” Cheney responds during an appearance on the late-night talk show The Tonight Show. He explains his continued refusal to cooperate with the GAO: “What’s at stake here is whether a member of Congress [Henry Waxman (D-CA), whom Cheney has accused the GAO of working for] can demand that I give him notes of all my meetings and a list of everybody I met with. We don’t think that he has that authority.” [National Review, 2/20/2002] The GAO’s chief, Comptroller General David Walker, will later call Cheney’s statements “disinformation.” [Savage, 2007, pp. 100]

David Walker, comptroller of the General Accounting Office (GAO) and a Ronald Reagan appointee, files a lawsuit to compel Vice President Dick Cheney and his office to reveal the names of the private businessmen and organizational officials that his energy task force (see January 29, 2001) met with to craft the Bush administration’s energy policies (see May 8, 2001). This is the first time since its creation in 1920 that the GAO has been forced to file suit to compel another government agency to follow the law and cooperate with its requests. [Dean, 2004, pp. 78-79] In a statement, Walker writes: “This is the first time that GAO has filed suit against a federal official in connection with a records access issue. We take this step reluctantly. Nevertheless, given GAO’s responsibility to Congress and the American people, we have no other choice. Our repeated attempts to reach a reasonable accommodation on this matter have not been successful. Now that the matter has been submitted to the judicial branch, we are hopeful that the litigation will be resolved expeditiously. [General Accounting Office, 2/22/2002 ]'Fundamental Questions' about Governmental 'Checks and Balances' - Former Nixon White House counsel John Dean will write in 2004: “This was, to say the least, a high-stakes lawsuit. It raised fundamental questions about the very nature of our system of checks and balances. If the GAO could not get the information it requested, then there was a black hole in the federal firmament—a no-man’s land where a president and vice president could go free from Congressional oversight.” By random selection, the case lands in the court of Judge John Bates, a career Justice Department lawyer who once worked for the Whitewater investigative team led by Kenneth Starr, and had just recently been appointed to the bench by President Bush. The choice of Bates will prove critical to the verdict of the case. [Dean, 2004, pp. 78-79]Schlafly: Secrecy a 'Mistake' - Conservative commentator and activist Phyllis Schlafly will write in 2002: “[T]he public wants to know how our energy policy was developed. When information is kept secret, the natural inference is that there must be something the administration is very eager to hide. While private businesses and households can be selective about what they tell the world, the American people are not willing to accord the same privacy to public officials paid by the taxpayers. Regardless of the legal veil woven over the energy policy meetings, Cheney’s secrecy is a political mistake.” [Eagle Forum, 3/6/2002]

Eric Schaeffer, 47, head of the EPA’s Office of Regulatory Enforcement, sends his letter of resignation to EPA administrator Christine Whitman. In the letter he says that he and his colleagues have been “fighting a White House that seems determined to weaken the rules that [EPA employees] are trying to enforce.” He complains that the administration is crippling the EPA’s enforcement divisions with budget cuts and that the White House is working with energy-industry lobbyists to weaken the New Source Review provision of the Clean Air Act which requires older coal power plants to install pollution controls when upgrading plant equipment (see August 27, 2003). [Schaeffer, 2/27/2002; Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/1/2002; Washington Monthly, 7/2002; New York Times, 1/5/2004; MSNBC, 4/20/2004]

Andrew Lundquist, the White House director of energy policy and the chairman of the Cheney energy task force (see January 29, 2001 and May 16, 2001), resigns from government service. The next day, Lundquist goes into the lobbying business. The Lundquist Group opens offices in what the Boston Globe will call a “posh office building perched kitty-corner from the Capitol.” Lundquist’s business will take in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from clients such as British Petroleum (see March 22, 2001) and Duke Energy Corporation (see March 5, 2001). [Savage, 2007, pp. 346]

Michael Kelly, a federal biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, heads a team for the National Marine Fisheries Service which is charged with reviewing the Bureau of Reclamation’s 10-year plan for allocating the Klamath River’s water. The team completes a report concluding that the Bureau’s plan would jeopardize the coho salmon, which are protected by the Endangered Species Act. The report makes its way to lawyers at the Justice Department who reject Kelly’s findings and order him to rewrite his biological opinion. Two weeks later, Kelly submits a new report reaffirming the team’s earlier findings, but supported by more scientific and detailed legal analysis. The recommendations are again rejected. Against the team’s advice, the Bureau of Land management will approve lower water levels for the Klamath River, based on recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences, which Kelly refuses to endorse. “Obviously someone at a higher level order the service to accept this new plan,” Kelly will observe. The decision will lead to the death of 33,000 salmon and steelhead trout (see September 2002). [Associated Press, 5/20/2004]

The State Department meets with industry lobbyists who are “unhappy” about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its current chairman, Robert T. Watson. The following day, the New York Times reports that the US will not support Waston’s nomination, but instead will back Rajendra K. Pachauri, an Indian economist and engineer who is currently one of the panel’s five vice chairmen. [New York Times, 4/3/2002] The decision to nominate Pachauri is made despite letters from numerous influential climate experts who have written to the department in support of Watson, including one by Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone, an atmospheric scientist who is chancellor of the University of California, Irvine, and chairman of a National Academy of Sciences panel that reviewed the IPCC’s climate analyses for the White House. Cicerone wrote in an e-mail to the State Department that the administration should support Watson, or at least another atmospheric scientist.
Otherwise, “such a change would greatly reduce the emphasis on science in IPCC,” he said. It would be “very, very difficult to find anyone better than Watson.” Industry on the other hand has complained that Watson’s views are biased and that he uses his position to advance his personal anti -coal and -oil agenda. [New York Times, 4/2/2002] In February, an ExxonMobil lobbyist had written to the White House suggesting that Watson not be reelected as chairman (see February 6, 2001).

Indian engineer and economist Rajendra K. Pachauri is elected with US backing as chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. [New York Times, 4/20/2002] US energy industry lobbyists had pressured Washington to block the reelection of Robert T. Watson, whose views about global warming had irked American energy companies (see February 6, 2001 and April 2, 2002).

The Environmental Protection Agency sends the United Nations a report on climate change, in which the US admits for the first time that human activity is largely to blame for recent global warming. It attributes rising global surface temperatures to the burning of fossil fuels and details the potential effects of continued warming. For example, the report notes, “A few ecosystems, such as alpine meadows in the Rocky Mountains and some barrier islands, are likely to disappear entirely in some areas. Other ecosystems, such as Southeastern forests, are likely to experience major species shifts or break up into a mosaic of grasslands, woodlands, and forests.” However the report does not recommend cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Rather it suggests adapting to a warmer climate, saying that nothing can be done about the greenhouse gases that have already been released into the atmosphere. Neither industry nor the environmental groups are pleased with the report. Industry’s opinions were conveyed in letters during the comment period in 2002. They had objected to the conclusion that greenhouse gases were contributing to global warming. On the other hand, environmentalists are bewildered by the the administration’s unwillingness to address the problem. “The Bush administration now admits that global warming will change America’s most unique wild places and wildlife forever,” says Mark Van Putten. “How can it acknowledge global warming is a disaster in the making and then refuse to help solve the problem, especially when solutions are so clear?” [Environmental Protection Agency, 5/2002; New York Times, 6/3/2002]

Myron Ebell, a director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), sends an email to Philip A. Cooney, chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, discussing how to respond to a recent EPA report (see May 2002) that acknowledged human activity is contributing to global warming. It was the first time the US government had ever made the admission. In the email, Ebell conveys his plan to discredit the report by suing the agency. He also recommends playing down the report and firing some EPA officials. “It seems to me that the folks at the EPA are the obvious fall guys and we would only hope that the fall guy (or gal) should be as high up as possible,” he says in the email. “Perhaps tomorrow we will call for Whitman to be fired.… It seems to me our only leverage to push you in the right direction is to drive a wedge between the president and those in the administration who think that they are serving the president’s interests by publishing this rubbish.” The organization Ebell represents has received more than $1 million since 1998 from Exxon. Cooney previously worked as a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute (see 2001). [Ebell, 6/3/2002; Greenpeace, 9/9/2003; Observer, 9/21/2003]

Responding to a reporter’s question about global warming, President Bush, referring to a recent EPA report (see May 2002) acknowledging that human activity is contributing to the Earth’s warming, says, “I read the report put out by a—put out by the bureaucracy.” He adds: “I do not support the Kyoto treaty. The Kyoto treaty would severely damage the United States economy, and I don’t accept that. I accept the alternative we put out, that we can grow our economy and, at the same time, through technologies, improve our environment.” [US President, 6/10/2002, pp. 957 ]

Environmental Defense, a New York-based advocacy group, publishes a report concluding that a fifth of all carbon dioxide emissions in the US come from cars and light trucks. The group also found that after decades of steady decline, since 1990, those emissions have begun to increase, dramatically. The study blames the increase on the higher number of light trucks, sport-utility vehicles, and minivans that are on the road. [Washington Post, 7/31/2002]

District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan rules that if Vice President Dick Cheney wants to have him dismiss a lawsuit brought by the watchdog organization Judicial Watch (see June 25, 2001), Cheney must show him the task force documents so that he can make an informed decision. No one else would see the documents, Sullivan says, and he cites a 1993 ruling forcing the Clinton health care task force to reveal its source documents and allow a judge to decide whether that task force had had outside lobbyists directly participating in its work. Judicial Watch’s director of investigations, Chris Farrell, is jubilant over Sullivan’s ruling. “It was very encouraging,” he will later recall. “It looked like the judge had the intellectual honesty and courage to at least give it an evaluation and a fair look. If, in fact, everything the administration was saying was true, then the judge would look at it and draw that conclusion. At least then the public would have some sense of confidence and trust that the right thing was being done, because a fresh set of eyes had looked at it. Without that check, you don’t know.” But Cheney refuses to comply with the order, and instead appeals Sullivan’s decision, asking an appeals court to summarily dismiss Sullivan’s ruling without first making Cheney show the documents to a judge. The appeals court will turn Cheney down, paving the way for a Supreme Court hearing (see December 15, 2003). [Savage, 2007, pp. 160-161]

More than 33,000 spawning salmon and steelhead trout die in the lower Klamath River due to the rivers abnormally low water level (see November 18, 2003). The fish succumb to “gill rot” which spreads rampantly among the fish as a result of warm water temperatures caused by the river’s shallow waters. The lower water-level is a result of the Bureau of Reclamation’s decision to cut the river’s flow to 750 cubic-feet per second and divert the remaining water to farmers for irrigation. The decision was made against the recommendations of two reports by a team of government biologists (see April 2002). [High Country News, 6/23/2003; Associated Press, 5/20/2004]

Philip A. Cooney, chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, edits a draft of the annual Our Changing Planet report to make it less alarming. In one sentence, he adds the word “extremely” so it reads, “The attribution of the causes of biological and ecological changes to climate change or variability is extremely difficult.” Similarly, he changes the sentence, “Many scientific observations indicate that the Earth is undergoing a period of relatively rapid change,” so it instead says, “Many scientific observations point to the conclusion that the Earth may be undergoing a period of relatively rapid change.” In another section of the report, he crosses out an entire paragraph discussing the expected melting of mountain glaciers and snowpacks. In its margins, he asserts that the report’s authors were “straying from research strategy into speculative findings/musings.” [New York Times, 6/8/2005; Reid and Lautenberg, 6/29/2005] Cooney, a former oil industry lobbyist, has no background in climate science (see 2001).

Newfields International, an environmental consulting firm, completes a study comparing several different content-analysis techniques used by government agencies and private contractors. The study, commissioned by Yosemite National Park, finds that the Forest Service’s Content Analysis Team (CAT) is using the most cost-effective, high-quality system available, explaining that the team has a “track record (that) is not equaled by any other organized process.” CAT is in charge of reviewing comment letters from the public and producing summary reports for policy decision-makers. Two months later the Bush administration will announce that the program will be reviewed for possible outsourcing to private contractors (see December 2002). [High Country News, 4/26/2004]

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